MangoSpring Challenges Yammer & Chatter with MangoApps 4.0

MangoSpring (news, site) released version 4.0 of its business communication suite this week, introducing four major additions: a WYSIWYG Wiki, online document reader, new project management features, and new mobile applications for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

MangoApps 4.0

MangoApps 4.0 includes a total of over 100 improvements, so here's a quick breakdown of some of the cooler sub-features:

Hierarchical wikis (pictured below): You can now create professionally formatted Web documents for project collaboration. The WYSIWYG design console can also save documents to PDF -- the preferred method of doc authoring.

Document reader support: MangoApps can open most document types without the need to download or install. All versions of Microsoft Office, all common image file types, and even AutoCAD documents are included.

New MangoTalk & MangoTask Applications for iPhone, iPad and Android devices: For users on the go, the new MangoTalk & MangoTasks stand-alone applications for iPhone, iPad and Android are perfect.

MangoApps 4.0 hierarchical wiki

"Everyone wants to work in an environment where they can easily share and collaborate with coworkers across the company," said Anup Kejriwal, CEO of MangoSpring. "We believe that true collaboration occurs only when employees' communication is integrated with daily workflow applications. Packaged in a highly intuitive user interface that requires zero training, MangoApps 4.0 is the industry's most advanced productivity suite."

Dollar Ballers

MangoSpring has plenty of competition in today's collaboration-fueled world, so as an extra perk the company has made its business-oriented chat service (MangoTalk) a mere US$ 1 dollar per month.

“$1/month is the new freemium model,” explained Kejriwal. “Instead of spending money on Super Bowl commercials and fancy offices, we continuously strive to be more efficient, and are excited to pass cost savings on to our customers in the form of lower prices. In return, our customers help us by referring new customers – so it’s a win-win situation.”

The direct jab at Salesforce's Chatter isn't the only rock MangoSpring is throwing. The company also noted that the new pricing model is 95% cheaper than Chatter ($15/user/mo.) and 80% cheaper than Yammer ($5/user/mo.).

We'd argue that by making its offerings more affordable MangoSpring is jumping into an already-full pool, but it is certainly a timely decision. After all, Chris Morace, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Jive Software, recently gave a fairly interesting talk on the future of business giants at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. In a comparison with Facebook's dominance, he predicts that there won't be a ton of leaders in the Enterprise 2.0 space -- only a handful.

As far as the whole microblogging/collaboration space goes, Yammer and Chatter are two of the largest beasts in the market. Will MangoSpring be able to compete? Let us know what you think in the comments below.